Dueling concours! Salon Prive and Concours of Elegance take place the same weekend, 65 miles apart

Both were good shows, jolly good shows you could say, just outside London, but apparently they didn’t talk to each other

Salon Prive and the Concours of Elegance take place the same weekend outside London. That's good for those with helicopters, a bit hectic for the rest of us. Here are photos of Salon Prive, at Blenheim Palace, which celebrated 70 years of Porsche, among others.. Below are photos of the Concours of Elegance.

Share

Salon Prive is three days of collector car enthusiasm celebrated at Blenheim Palace 62 miles outside of London. It started this year on Thursday, Aug. 30 with the Chubb Insurance Concours and ended with the Concours Masters Celebrates 70 Years of Porsche on Saturday, Sept. 2. In between was Boodles Ladies' Day on Friday, a day that included a Best Hat competition. So much to love about the whole thing. Here, chief judge Sir Derek Bell confers with a colleague.

Share

Another judge at Salon Prive.

Share

That's Blenheim Palace in the background.

Share

Gentlemen and cars

Share

There were also about 20 motorcycles on display

Share

Lamborghini introduced the Aventador SVJ to Europe here.

Share

There was a tribute to the 50th (or so) anniversary of the Ferrari Dino

Share

Here's the palace again. Nice digs.

Share

Best in show of the Concours was this 1933 Bugatti Type 55 Roadster at the 2018 Salon Privé Chubb Insurance Concours d’Elégance

Car lovers in the U.K. had a heck of a choice to make last weekend, as equally fabulous (Absolutely Fabulous?) concours competed for the attention of the discerning and distinguished U.K. car aficionado. After flipping a coin, we’ll start with Salon Prive, the slightly older of the two since it’s celebrating its 13th year in 2018.

Salon Prive bills itself as “Britain’s most exclusive garden party.” It’s a place full of the behavior (copy editor's note: or behaviour, as those weirdos would have it) and trappings exactly as we Yanks imagine British Society always operates: with fashionable ladies in huge sun hats, handsome gentlemen in seersucker coats and straw fedoras, and everyone strolling about fabulous palace grounds sipping tea. That is all true of Salon Prive, and there are also gorgeous cars as part of this three-day celebration.

Things started early at Salon Prive, on Thursday, Aug. 30, with the Chubb Insurance Concours d’Elegance. A total of 53 cars and 20 motorcycles rolled onto the grass at the foot of the palace, divided into 10 car classes and three motorcycle. Judging was overseen by five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell. Best of Show went to a 1933 Bugatti Type 55 Roadster.

On Saturday, Sept. 2, Salon Prive held Concours Masters, which paid tribute to 70 Years of Porsche. More than 40 Porsches took part, ranging from a 1955 550 RS Spyder -- the one with the huge orange wing on top, maybe you’ve seen it -- up to a 918 and a 991.2 GT2 RS. In between those two heavyweight events was something called Boodles Ladies Day, listed as "fast-becoming the social event of the summer season." It included a Best Hat celebration, among other events.

Share

The three-day-long Concours of Elegance is one of the world's best gatherings of classic - and some modern - automobiles. This year it was held again in the Fountain Gardens of Hampton Court Palace, a short drive from London. Sixty select cars park inside Hampton Court while "nearly 1000" amass outside, the latter brought by car clubs across the UK. Here is a Lagonda.

Share

A 917 gets set up to help celebrate 70 years of Porsche.

Share

Jaguar Cars Ltd. Coventry

Share

XP1 LM

Share

A special class gathered together nine variations of the Aston Martin DB4

Then, just 65 miles away and only 12 miles from London, was the Concours of Elegance. Note the “of” and not “d’Elegance.” This is an English event and even though “concours” and “elegance” are French words, and even though the French invented the concours, these guys went with “of” because it was an English concours, by Jove.

The Concours of Elegance was held at another palace, this one Hampton Court Palace, where it was last year and also in 2014. The first one took place in 2012 as part of a celebration of the diamond jubilee of Her Majesty The Queen’s reign. Congratulations, your majesty. Now let Charles take a turn at the right-hand-drive wheel, won’t you?

Things started on Friday, Aug. 31, Owners’ Day, with The Grand Arrival of 60 cars onto the Fountain Gardens’ lawn led by the event’s patron, His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent. On Saturday, 1,000 cars from Britain’s finest car clubs arrived, including Aston Martin, Ferrari, Jaguar, Bentley and Rolls-Royce. Among other event features was a grouping of nine Aston Martin DB4s, which included Series 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, as well as a DB4 GT, GT Zagato and Bertone Jet. There was even one of the new re-creation DB4 GT Continuation cars.